Using RadControls in Expressions Blend Sketchflow project

[Linda]

Hello,

I am trying to add the RadControls for Silverlight to a Sketchflow Silverlight project and I am getting errors. I'm hoping that someone can point me in the right direction. The first set of errors occurs when I import the telerik binaries from the Q3 2009/Binaries/Silverlight folder (note that I got similar errors when I used the Q2 release). During the addition of the references, all the following files were not added because they "could not be referenced because it was not built against the Silverlight runtime."

    System.Windows.Controls.Data.Design.dll
    System.Windows.Controls.Charting.Design.dll
    System.Windows.Controls.Design.dll
    System.Windows.Controls.Docking.Design.dll
    System.Windows.Controls.Editor.Design.dll
    System.Windows.Controls.Input.Design.dll
    System.Windows.Controls.Navigation.Design.dll
    System.Windows.Controls.RadUploadHandler.dll

Once the addition of the references that did work was complete, I attempted to add a RadMenu to my Sketchflow screen. The control added, but when I tried to add a RadMenuItem, I received the following error:

    Could not load the assembly Telerik.Silverlight.Controls.Test.Common because the following errors occurred: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.Silverlight.Testing, Version=2.0.20930.1042, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

What do I need to do to solve this problem?

Thanks,
Linda

[Boyan]

Hello Linda,

 These design assemblies should not be added to your projects they are just telling what items will be shown in  VS or Blend ToolBoxes. So you don't add them to your projects, they just have to be in the same directory as their corresponding dll for example: Telerik.Windows.Controls.Navigation.Design.dll  goes with Telerik.Windows.Controls.Navigation.dll. Also  Telerik.Windows.Controls.RadUploadHandler.dll is added only to web projects as it is a service that is used by RadUpload.
 Then the error you get is because this assembly --  Telerik.Silverlight.Controls.Test.Common.dll  should not be added. We usually remove it from release dll's but this time we have left it there, sorry for this mistake.
 Basically the assemblies you need are:
    Telerik.Windows.Controls.Data.dll
    Telerik.Windows.Controls.Charting.dll
    Telerik.Windows.Controls.dll
    Telerik.Windows.Controls.GridView.dll
    Telerik.Windows.Controls.Docking.dll
    Telerik.Windows.Controls.Editor.dll
    Telerik.Windows.Controls.Input.dll
    Telerik.Windows.Controls.Navigation.dll
    Telerik.Windows.Controls.Scheduler.dll
    Telerik.Windows.Controls.MediaPlayer.dll
    Telerik.Windows.Controls.Gauge.dll

This are for all of our controls, but if you don't use some of our controls in your application I suggest removing the not needed assemblies. For example if you are not using RadScheduler or RadDock remove
Telerik.Windows.Controls.Docking.dll and  Telerik.Windows.Controls.Scheduler.dll.


Greetings,
Boyan
the Telerik team

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[Linda]

Thank you so much for your assistance. I have it all working now.

 

Linda

[Bryce]

Thanks! This post + reply helped me also with the identical problem.

My only additional question is this: As this problem was exposed way back in 2009, why has it not yet been eliminated as a problem? By that I mean:

• Place either the "should-be referenced" or the "should-not-be referenced" assemblies in separate folders;
• Re-name the assemblies to identify the "ins" and "outs";
• Install the assemblies in such a way that they are referenced automatically when a new project is created. The SIlverlight Toolkit 2010 does this, and so does Infragistics.
  • If 'performance' is the excuse for not doing this, then I submit that the burden of figuring out why this stuff doesn't work out-of-the-box is much bigger performance problem.
• Or, at the very least, place a BlendUsersReadme.txt file in the same folder as the assemblies. There is no good reason to force  users to stalk the forums to learn about this list of valid asssemblies.

[Boyan]

Hi Bryce,

All the needed Binaries are situated in folder Binaries/Silverlight of the installation. The design binaries which we should not reference in projects are situated in another folder: Binaries/Silverlight/design. More info on what assembly each control need you can find in this help article.

There is an easier way to add binaries out of the box. When you install Telerik controls for Silverlight by the .msi file Telerik controls are added into the Assets tab of Blend. So you should just drag the control from there to the design surface and the needed binaries for this control will be added to the project. I recorded a small video how Blend Assets should look after installing Telerik and how to use the controls this way.

I am sorry for the inconvenience. Hope this info is helpful.

All the best,
Boyan
the Telerik team

[Krishna]

What do I do if I don't see the controls in the Blend asset bar?

-- please ignore - upgrading to Blend Preview for SL5 fixed the problem.